
(lass. 
Hook 



<l 



PKKSEN'Ti:!) iri" 



I ■' 



SETTING OF THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF 
INDEPENDENCE 

By a. J. Morrison 

The General Assembly of North Carolina, in session during 
the month of March, 1774, was dissolved by Governor Martin 
March 30th, the Assembly in the Governor's mind 'having 
assumed to themselves a power unconstitutional and repug-, 
nant to the laws.' The main point at issue, ostensibly, was 
the constitution and jurisdiction of the law courts of the 
province. Speaker Harvey and Samuel Johnston, on their 
way up from Newberne to their homes across All'emarle 
Sound, lodged at Colonel Edward Buncombe's in Tyrrell 
County the night of April 4th; and 'as they sat up very late 
the conversation turned on continental and provincial affairs.' 
The next day Mr. Johnston wrote to his friend and fellow 
lawyer, William Hooper at Wilmington, giving some account 
of the talk at Colonel Buncombe's. 

"Mr. Bigglestone (Govenior Martin's Secretary) told Colonel Har- 
vey that the Governor did not intend to convene another assembly 
until he sav/ some chance of a better one than the last. Colcntl Har- 
vey told the Secretary that then the people would convene one them- 
selves. He was in a very violent mood, and declared he was for 
assembling a convention independent of the G<cvernor and urged 
upon us to cooperate with him. He says he will lead the way and 
will issue hand bills under his own name, and that the Ccmmiitee of 
Correspondence ' ought to go to wcrk at once. As for my own part, 
I do not know what better can be done. Without courts to sustain 
the property and to exercise the talents cf the country, and the 
people alarmed and dissatisfied, we must do something to save (^ur- 



'Dec. 8, 1773: 'The Speaker communicated to the House the Re- 
solves cf the Virginia House of Burgesses of March 12, 1773, for a 
system of correspondence; approved. A standing committee of En- 
quiry and Correspondence appointed,' viz. the Speaker (John Har- 
vey), Robert Howe, Cornelius Harnett, William Hooper, Richard 
Caswell, Edward Vail, John Ashe, Joseph Hewes, Samuel Johnston. 



'' '" . Q 

16 The Texas Review 

selves. Cclonel Harvey said he had mentioned the matter only tt) 
Willie (pron. Wyly) Jones of Halifax, whom he had met the day 
before, and that he thought well of it and promised to exert him- 
self in its favor. I beg your friendly counsel and advice on the sub- 
ject and hope you will speak of it to Mr. Harnett and Colonel Ashe 
or any other such men." 

The thoughts of William Hooper, as both a Bostonian and 
a Carolinian, were already at work on these questions of Im- 
perial and Amcriciin policy. April 26 Mr. Hooper said in a 
letter to James Iredell of Chowan, -'With you I anticipate the 
important share the Colonies must soon have in regulating the 
political balance. They are striding fast to independence, 
and ere long will build an empire upon the ruins of Great 
Britain.' Then a word as to the decline and fall of Rome — 
'reserve the catastrophe,' added Mr. Hooper, 'and might not 
Great Britain be the original from which this picture is 
taken? America is perhaps reserved to be their asylum; 
may they find it the asylum of liberty too. Be it our en- 
deavour to guard against every measure that may have a 
tendency to prevent so desirable an object.' Mr, Hooper's 
inmost opinion at the time seems to have been that it was the 
destiny of America to set Great Britain a definite lesson in 
the nature of political freedom, no matter if serious fracas 
and for a while separation was to be the result. 

So July 21, with the revolving year, Mr. Hooper called to 
order a meeting at Wilmington for the purpose of issuing a 
letter to the counties with respect to Parliamentary acts 
lately made in oppression of 'our sister colony of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay for having exerted itself in defence of the 
constitutional rights of America'; the counties to be asked 
to send deputies to a Provincial Congress for debate upon 
'the present alarming state of British America, and in con- 
cert with the other colonies to adopt and prosecute such 
measures as will most effectually tend to avert the miseries 
which threaten us;' such Provincial Congress also to consider 
the convening of a general congress, 'for alteration of British 
policy and a change honorable and beneficial to all America. ' 



Setting of the Mecklenburg DeclarxItion 17 

Word, then, came to the counties of the proposed measures, 
and Governor Martin learned of what was a-foot. The Gov- 
ernor in council at Newberne was advised that no steps could 
properly be taken in the circumstances other than to issue 
forthwith a proclamation to discourage and prevent meetings 
and assembling's of the people. But in response to the eirculai 
letter sent them from Wilmington the people of the counties 
began to assemble, earlier in August far from the coast, later 
in the month as you neared the coast. The Congress was to 
meet at Newberne on the 25th, and counties adjacent could 
select their deputies a mere few days beforehand. 

Freeholders of the far western county of Rowan, meeting 
on the 8th of August, declared that they were ready to main- 
tain at the expense of their lives and fortunes His Majesty's 
right and title to the crown of Great Britain and dominion 
in America: 'that the right to impose taxes and duties to be 
paid by the inhabitants within this province for any purpose 
whatsoever is peculiar and essential to the General A&sembly 
in whom the legislative authority of the Colony is vested: 
that any attempt to impose such taxes or duties by any other 
authority is an arbitrary exertion of power, and an infringe- 
ment of the constitutional rights and liberties of the colonies: 
that the cause of the town of Boston is the common cause of 
the American colonies: that it is the essential duty of all the 
American colonies firmly to unite in an indissoluble union 
and association to oppose by every just and proper means the 
infringement of their common rights and privileges. ' 

Anson County of the West, at its meeting on the 18th, was 
not careful to register phrases of loyalty but resolved at the 
outset, 'that it is the opinion of this meeting that the late arbi- 
trary and cruel acts of the British Parliament and other un- 
constitutional and oppressive measures of the British minis- 
try, against the Town and Port of Boston and Province of 
Massachusetts Bay are no other than the most alarming pre- 
lude to that yoke of slavery already manufactured by the 
said ministry and by them intended to be laid on all the in- 



18 The Texas Review 

habitants of British America and their posterity forever.' No 
Mecklenburg Resolutions of August, 1774, have been pre- 
served. It is not impossible that many people in Mecklenburg 
were still uncertain whether South or North Carolina was 
their territory. Rowan and Anson, to the north and east of 
Mecklenburg, are more conspicuously on record in these 
grave mixed affairs of the summer of '74. Farther east — 
Johnston on the 12th, Granville on the 15th, Chowan on the 
22nd, Halifax Town on the 22nd — freeholders in assembly 
knew how to temper independence with loyalty; but Pitt 
County on the 15th stated bluntly, with no sort of qualifica- 
tion, that the people was the 'foundation from whence all 
power and legislation flow.' 

Call for the Congress had come from the East, and in re- 
sponse the East was no less outspoken than the West. But 
of all these August Resolutions, those of Granville County on 
the 15th (Granville of the mid- country) have the noblest 
sound, beginning. "Resolved, that those absolute rights we 
are entitled to as men, by the immutable laws of nature, are 
antecedent to all social and relative duties whatsoever: that 
by the civil compact subsisting between our King and his 
people, allegiance is the right of the first magistrate and pro- 
tection the right of the people: that a violation of this com- 
pact would rescind the civil institution binding both King 
and people together;" and ending, "Resolved, therefore, 
that all such acts of the British Parliament as either express 
or imply the Parliament's right to tax America, that abro- 
gate our legislative or judicial powers, that tend to deprive 
us of our property without a trial by jury or that point out 
to the executive magistrate a form of proceeding excluding 
the civil institutions of our country, have a tendency to sub- 
vert our liberties and reduce us to a state of slavery." 

August 25th being the day set for the Congress at New- 
berne, the Governor in Council at Newberne desiring the ad- 
vice of Council whether he could take any further measures 
to stop the Provincial Congress come to town. Council was 



Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 19 

of the unanimous opinion that no other steps could be prop- 
erly taken at this juncture. The march of events was putting 
to test as never before that system of government, a governor 
and council appointed from overseas to thwart or to execute 
the will of the people as declared by their representatives. 
There had been little of tyranny in the old system, for the 
Council also was representative and had been obstinate 
enough on occasion. Here, however, with August, '74, was a 
startling assumption of the grounds of British freedom, — a 
Congress of the peoples' deputies, and Governor and Council 
sitting by to no effect. It is very likely the Governor him- 
self saw plainly now that the British Constitution could 
hardly be made to work two ways. His neighbors of the Con- 
gi'ess were explicit in their belief that they themselves had 
the traditional, right understanding of the Constitution. 
They professed themselves his Majesty's most dutiful and 
loyal subjects, with the most sacred respect for the British 
Constitution, "but at the same time conceiving it a duty 
which we owe to ourselves and to posterity in the present 
alarming state of British America, when our most essential 
rights are invaded by powers unwarrantably assumed by the 
Parliament of Great Britain, to declare our sentiments in the 
most public manner, lest silence should be construed as ac- 
quiescence . . . . : that we claim no more than the rights of 
Englishmen without diminution or abridgement ; that it is our 
iudispensal)le duty and will be our constant endeavor to main- 
tain those rights to the utmost of our power, consistently 
with the loyalty which we owe our sovereign, and sacred re- 
gard for the British Constitution: .... that Liberty is the 
spirit of the British Constitution, and that it is the duty and 
will be the endeavour of us as British Americans to transmit 
this Constitution to our posterity in a state if possible better 
than we found it." 

The Congress convening on Thursday, Speaker Harvey was 
chosen Moderator. He might have been addressed as "Mr. 
Operator." On Friday the state of the country was con- 



20 The Texas Review 

sidered, correspondence of the Committee of Correspondence, 
laid before the deputies by Mr. Hewes of Edcnton, merchant 
in close touch with Philadelphia, On Saturday the Congress 
drew up, through Mr. Hooper, their resolutions of respect 
and fortitude; chose Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell their dele- 
gates to the General Congress at Philadelphia, with power 
to act, and any act done by them to be oblisatory upon evcrj' 
inhabitant of the province, 'not an alien to his country's 
good and an apostate to the liberties of America.' Then the 
deputies, having affixed their names to their Resolutions, dis- 
persed and went home. 

Contemporary opinion verbatim is worth more than any 
summary, most certainly if the opinion is that of a man of 
brains. Samuel Johnston, a deputy from Chowan to the late 
Congress, wrote a letter Sept. 23rd to his friend Alexander 
Elmsly of London. Mr. Elmsly had spent some years in 
North Carolina as a lawyer at Halifax, and was now in ac- 
tive business in London. He was besides at the time political 
agent of the North Carolina General Assembly, a man of 
clear head but apt to take an altogether matter of fact view 
of the difficult business pending between the Colonies and 
Great Britain. Mr. Johnston said to him — 

"You will not wonder at my being more warmly affected with 
affairs of America than you seem to be. I came over so early and 
and so riveted to it by my connections that I cannot help feeling for 
it as if it were my natale solum. The Ministry from the time of 
passing the declaratory act, on the repeal of the Stamp Act, seem 
to have used every opportunity of teizing and fretting the people 
here as if on purpose to draw them into rebellion or some violent 
opposition to government, at a time when the inhabitants of Boston 
were every man quietly employed about their own private affairs. 
The wise members of your House of Commons, on the authority of 
ministerial scribbles, declare they are in a state of open rebellion. 
On the strength of this they pass a set of laws which from their 
severity and injustice cannot be carried into execution but by a 
military force, which they have very wisely provided, being con- 
scious that no people who had once tasted the sweets of freedom 
would ever submit to them except in the last extremity. Thny 
have now brought things to a crisis, and God only knows where it 



/ 



Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 21 

will end. It is useless in disputes between different countries to 
talk about the right which 'one has to give laws to the other, as that 
generally attends the power, tho' where that power is wantonly or 
cruelly exercised, there are instances where the weaker state has 
resisted with success. Fcr when once the sword is drawn all nice 
distinctions fall to the ground, the difference between internal and 
external taxation will be little attended to, and it will hereafter be 
considered of no consequence whether the act be to regulate trade 
or raise a fund to support a majority in the House of Ccmmons. 
By this desperate push the Ministry will either confirm their power 
of making laws to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever, or 
give up the right of making laws to bind them in any case, a right 
which they might have exercised in mcst cases to the mutual ad- 
vantage of Great Britain and the Colonies for ages to come, had 
they exercised it with discretion." 

It was also Governor's Martin's opinion that the time was 
critical indeed. The Governor was no lawyer, bnt a soldier 
by trade; and in these preliminary days, although minded of 
justice and constitutionality within limits, was always fret- 
ting that matters could not be sharply brought round by the 
military arm. Immediately after the Newberne Congress of 
August the Governor had gone to New York to consult a 
physician and observe the state of the country to the north- 
ward. In a private letter from New York, Nov. 4, to the 
Earl of Dartmouth, Governor Martin said 'The crisis, my 
Lord, is come in my humble opinion, and perhaps in the best 
time when Britain must assert and establish her just rights 
and authority in the colonies, whatever they may be, or give 
up forever all pretensions to dominion over them.' Governor 
Martin came home by land in late December and January, 
but could not well send Lord Dartmouth a report of what he 
had seen on his journey down until March 10, 1775. The 
Governor had seen that the ferment in the colonies was un- 
mistakably active. He still had hopes that General Gage and 
other military men might by promptitude impose the will of 
government upon America. In Virginia he had observed that 
the committees appointed under the prescriptions of Congress 
were proceeding 'in some places to the most arbitrary and un- 



22 The Texas Review 

warranted exertions of power.' On the other hand, he said, 
he had the satisfaction to find the people in the western parts 
of North Carolina were withstanding 'for the most part 
steadily all the efforts of the factions to seduce them from 
their duty.' Among those who were thus withstanding, the 
Governor (it is to be supposed), was not counting certain 
inhabitants of Orange and Granville, Richard Henderson & 
Company, to wit, whom he had on Februars^ 10th — 'in his 
Majesty's name and also in behalf of the Earl Granville' — 
strictly forbidden to prosecute the planting of the colony of 
Transylvania, 'on pain of his Majesty's highest displeasure 
and of suffering the most rigorous penalties of the law.' 
Those of the Centre and West held by the Governor to be yet 
steadfast in duty and loyalty were certain inhabitants of 
Dobbs, Guilford, Surry, Rowan, and Anson who had during 
February sent down to Newberne most emphatically Tory 
addresses, signing their names to the number of five or six 
hundred. During the spring of 1775 Governor Martin had 
been careful to distribute packets of Tory pamphlets in the 
Centre and West. With regard to the loyal response he got 
from those quarters he remarked in his dispatch to the Earl 
of Dartmouth, 'I am hopeful the originality and imperfection 
of the stile will not extenuate the merit of the sentiments.* 
To the last the Governor was as cheerful as he could be in the 
hope that he might accomplish something solid, with the back- 
ing of his Tory correspondents of the West and Centre 
strengthened by the Highlanders of the Cape Fear. 

Strange spectacles enough were preparing and were 
staged in and for the province of North Carolina during the 
spring of the year 1775. Over against Governor IMartin 
there was, for instance. Colonel Harvey of Perquimans, 
Speaker and Moderator, Author and Shaper. From his 
house in Perquimans on Albemarle, John Harvey as modera- 
tor issued this advertisement February 11th — 'The respec- 
tive Counties and Towns in this Colony are requested to 
elect Delegates to represent them in Convention, who are 



Setting op the Mecklenburg Declaration 23 

desired to p-'eet at the Town qP Newbern on Monday the 3rd 
day of April next.' Apparently it was Colonel Harvey who 
staged the intricate business of the first week in April. The 
Governor had prorogued the Assembly to March 27. Col- 
onel Harvey's advertisement reaching him, on March 1st the 
Oovern'^r bv pro'^lamrtion put his veto, under the prerosra- 
tive. ur>cn the Colonel's Convention. Delegates to the As- 
semblv began coming in to Newberne the last week in March, 
but there was not a quorum on the 27th. The Governor 
prorogued the Assembly from day to day. Meantime it be- 
came very obvious that the Assemblymen arriving at New- 
berne bad almost without exception been chosen by the 
counties as deputies to Colonel Harvey's Convention. Here 
was without question a prcblem in practical politics. The 
Governor knew what he faced. It pleased him, April 2nd, 
sitting m CoT-n^il, to desire the advice of Council whether he 
could properly take any further measures (beyond further 
protest and injunction) to prevent these Assemblymen at 
Newberne meeting at Newberne in a Convention of their 
own. This was the polite prologue in Council. And it 
pleased the Governor, reporting to the Earl of Dartmouth a 
few days later, to say that he had hoped the Assemblv on 
what he had to say to it would secede from this Convention ; 
'althouf^h I well knew,' added the Governor, 'that many of 
the members had been sent as deputies to it.' Governor 
Martin was playing for position, as we say, and not unskil- 
fullv, en the principle that any man may harangue in the 
park, but if action follows then let whatever law there is in 
the premises take steps. As the premises were, Colonel 
Harvey had the position. This Convention assembled for 
business on the 3rd. If the Convention could assemble with 
an ample working quorum, the General Assembly could un- 
questionably meet. On the 4th it met, and with all the 
elaborate formalities of custom. So April 4th, 5th, 6th, and 
7th. representatves of the counties and towns of the province 
were in assembly at Newberne 'transforming themselves,.* as 



1:4 The Texas Review 

the Governor remarked 'from time to time into a Convention 
or an Assembly.' Speaker Harvey was Moderator Harvey. 
Tlie Chair was doubly dignified. The House was energized 
to new functioning. It is interesting to note that the last 
Assembly (under the Crown) of North Carolina, sitting by 
writ under the prerogative, was also a Convention of the 
people, chosen by the people of their own motion. Dutifully 
the Governor drew the distinction, recognizing the one body, 
not recognizing the other. He argued in his address as to 
the impropriety, the unwisdom of popular assemblies, and of 
this convention in especial presuming to sit *at this very 
time and place in the face of the Legislature; whereas you 
Gentlemen of the Assembly, are the only legal and propei: 
channel.' The Governor enlarged upon these fine distinc- 
tions and adverted a little to the Assembly's constituency — 
he was gratified, he said, at the numerous loyal addresses 
he had received from certain counties, and spoke of the base 
arts that must have been employed to stir up the people to 
frame disloyal utterances. The Assembly in their draft of 
answer to the Governor 's speech declared : ' It is the undoubted 
right of his Majesty's subjects to petition for a redress of 
grievances either in a separate or collective capacity, and in 
order to agree upon such petition or remonstrance they have 
a right to collect themselves together. The Assembly there- 
fore can never deem the meeting of the present Convention 
at Newberne an illegal meeting nor conceive it derogatory to 
the power and authority of the Assembly, and though the 
Assembly are the legal representatives and perhaps adequate 
to every purpose of the people, yet the frequent prorogations 
gave the people no reason to expect that the Assembly would 
be permitted to meet 'til it was too late to send delegates to 
the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, a measure which 
Ameica in general and this province in particular thought 
abso'utely necessary.' The Governor was assured that His 
Majes'^y had no subjects more loyal than those of North 
Card na, nor none more ready at the expense of their lives 



Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 25 

and fortunes to protect and support His Majesty's person, 
crown, and dignity. The Assembly spoke of their gratifica- 
tion in the matter of loj^al addresses received by the Gov- 
ernor, 'that in so numerous a colony, so few could be found 
weak enough to be seduced from their duty and prevailed on 
by base arts and artful measures so contrary to the sense of 
all America, and so destructive of those just rights and pri- 
vileges it was their duty to support.' This draft of answer 
was slightly modified in committee, but the tenor of the an- 
swer was the same : i. e., — we are good subjects, but if we are 
to continue so, the King must change the ways of Parlia- 
ment, so to speak. Assembly expressly endorsed every act of 
Convention, and approved every act of Convention's three 
delegates now reappointed to the General Congress. 

Very solemn fooling such procedure appeared to Alex- 
ander Elmsly in London. April 7th he was writing to Sam 
Johnston, 'your politics are past my expectations and out of 
my reach.' A little earlier he had set down as his opinion, 
'it is your numbers and importance that gives you conse- 
quence and every other argument in your favour teems with 
absurdity. ' 

Governor Martin, of course, was at this time standing on 
difficult ground. The General Assembly was occupying 
difficult ground and also the Convention. Was the King to 
permit his subjects in North America to interpret to him and 
the Parliament the essential nature of the British Constitu- 
tion? Who was to yield in the large or small business of in- 
terpretation? And was interpretation comfortably at one 
throughout the province of North Carolina itself? Andrew 
Millar, merchant of Halifax, said of the Resolves of the first 
Newberne Congress: 

"I am told they were drawn by Mr. Hooper, for whom there was 
such injusace used by the meeting to get him appointed a delegate 
[to Philadelphia], that I hope the western countries will pay no 
share of tha delegate's expenses, as they had no share in the nomi- 
nation, having only one or two members for a county ana me 



2G The Texas Review 

southern and lower counties had some of them six votes. It is not 
in character to dispute the power of Parliament, when we say we 
are nnt represented, and yet quickly submit to so unequal a repre- 
sentation in a body formed by ourselves." 

Very true. Mecklenburg, for example, had but one delegate 
to represent that vast county in the first Newberne Congress 
(Benjamin Patton, a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration), 
whereas Chowan had five delegates, and Onslow three. Mr. 
jMillar, a Tory of parts, was arguing for the insidious effect, 
but there was ground of dispute, plenty of it, and there had 
long been. The Northern Counties, precincts of Old Albe- 
marle, had the precedence and their representation in the 
General Assembly had been disproportionately large for 
many years. The Southern Counties had protested, gover- 
nors had protested, but nothing had been done. As the more 
western counties were set off they fell in line with a re- 
stricted representation. North Carolina came up to the be- 
ginnings of the Revolution on that footing. Not until the 
third Provincial Congress, held at Hillsborough, was there 
attempt made to have the counties represented on an equality. 
We know that there was a very considerable Tory party in 
the West. At the height of the war, locally, the Tories raided 
Hillsborough and carried off the people's Governor. It is not 
unlikely opinion was a good deal confused in the West dur- 
ing the spring of 1775. At any rate Anson and Mecklenburg 
were represented in the first Newberne Congress, and were 
not represented in the second. Governor Martin had not 
long before advised government that the ill consequences of 
the mode of representation in North Carolina had become 
very apparent to the inhabitants of the Western country^ 
'who must be ever governed by the conjunction of the North- 
ern and Southern interests, although that district is often 
times their extent and four times more populous.' When 
Messrs. Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell were chosen as dele- 
gates to the Continental Congress, the idea seems to have 
been that Mr. Hewes stood for the Northern counties, Mr. 



Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 27 

Hooper for the Southern, and Mr. Caswell for the West. 
Mr. Caswell lived in Johnston, a sort of compromise 
county, both North and South, and then he had once been 
c]erk of Orange Court. At least Governor Martin, con- 
sidering all these things, could flatter himself April 20, 
1775, in the avowed belief that he could count upon the 
West. The West had been slimly represented in the late 
Convention. Old Regulators, (whom Tryon had faced, 
chastened, and dealt fairly with) had just now as- 
sured his successor of their readiness to support him in 
maintaining the constitution and laws upon all occasions, 'and 
I have no doubt that I might command their best services at 
a word on any emergency. This affords me the highest sat- 
isfaction, for as these counties are by far the most populous 
part of the Province, I consider I have the means in my own 
hands to maintain the sovereignty of this country to my 
royal master in all events.' It is scarcely possible that Gov- 
ernor Martin can have been wholly a deluded man. At that 
juncture of half lights generally. Governor Martin had 
reason to think that there were many inhabitants of the 
Western Counties who would not break with the King. But 
there were men in the West who were willing to break with 
the King, who wanted new forms of liberty and felt that the 
time was near come for no uncertain action. At the moment 
almost, Alexander Elmsly was writing from London, 'They 
say your seaports are to be turned into garrison towns, and 
the people of the country left at liberty to form any estab- 
lishment they think proper.' If that was to be the strategy, 
then Mecklenburg County, running west to the Cherokee 
Mountains and beyond at a push, once its people were con- 
sentaneous might set up independence with no great ado. 
For what was the Colony of Transylvania about already in 
the month of May? 'Is Dick Henderson out of his head?', 
somebody asked Mr. Millar of Halifax. Were not Richard 
Henderson & Company, of Granville County and that region, 
setting up a new state in the month of May, Transylvania, 



28 The Texas Review 

in flat contravention of Governor Martin; 'without ^ving 
offence,' as those Transylvanians blandly asserted, 'without 
giving offence to Great Britain or any of the American Col- 
onies, without disturbing the repose of any society or com- 
munity under Heaven.' 

It is plain enough now, that that spring and that summer 
of 1775 was the balancing time. Joseph Hewes, merchant 
of Edenton, delegate to the General Congress, arrived at 
Philadelphia May 9th. On the 11th he sent a letter to Sam- 
uel Johnston who, upon the death of Colonel Harvey in May, 
became the head of the Whig party in North Carolina, Mr. 
Hewes in his letter mentioned gossip and outstanding fact, 
and drew an argument from what he saw. 

"Galloway," he said, "has turned apostate. A few days ago a box 
was left at his lodgings in this city directed for Jos. Galloway, 
Esqr. ; he opened it before several gentlemen then present and was 
much surprised to find it contained a halter with a note in the?o 
wicrds, 'All the satisfaction you can now give your injured country 
is to make a proper use of this and rid the world of a damned 
scoundrel.' He is gone off nobody can tell where, tho' it is thought 
to New York. All kinds of business is at a stand here, nothing 
is heard but the sound of drum and fife, all ranks and degrees of 
men are in arms learning the manual exercise, evolutions, and 
management of artillery. . . . All the Quakers except a few of the 
eld ones have taken up arms. . . . The battle near Boston and 
the Act of Parliament for restraining the trade of all the colonies 
except New York and North Carolina has wrought the conversion of 
New York; I wish to God it may have the same effect on our 
province. I tremble for N. Carolina. Every county ought to have 
at least one company formed and exercised. Pray encourage it, speak 
to the people, write to them, urge strongly the necessity for it. 1 
had rather perish ten thousand times than they should give up the 
matter now in the time of tryal." 

Governor Martin had reported to Lord Dartmouth, dur- 
ing the Newberne Congress of April, that a proposal made 
in Convention on the 6th to organize the militia had been 
overruled. Government had some show of reason to think 
that North Carolina and New York might be held as very 



Setting op the Mecklenburg Declaration 29 

useful salients among the Colonies. It was Governor Tryon's 
idea, and he was familiar with both regions, that manipula- 
tion there and here might be practicable; he was at the time 
in London, and in the business of North Carolina was sec- 
onded by Mr. Elmsly, political agent, who was willing to 
take a certain liberty with his principals and give them a 
chance to compound. There is no saying what might have 
happened unless the tension in Massachusetts Bay had been 
of a sort to admit of no compromise. The muskets of Lex- 
ington were heard a long way off. Those men of the western 
counties in North Carolina, rather far from the depots of 
overseas trade, living among Tories of all complexions — 
Thomas Polk and his friends of the West, who had been by 
the negative record neutral until now, Tom Polk and his 
friends of Mecklenburg, we say, declared for independence. 
That was a loosely defined territory. People were not sure 
where they belonged, whether to South or to North Carolina. 
Such a territorial status made for independence, honest and 
dishonest. Men of brains like Polk, the Alexanders, and their 
friends were saying, 'We might as well set up our own gov- 
ernment — we are forced to it by all the circumstances — we 
must have our law courts and we must show these Tories 
that we are not to be trifled with.' (Pardon us now, a cen- 
tury after the clever and silly argument began, if we ape 
Thucydides a little) — Then before the middle of May^ Thomas 
Polk and his friends heard the shooting and the hard com- 
mands at Lexington. They met together in convention at 
their Court House and spoke their thoughts, without any 

* It is not in rea&on to suppose that news of the battle at Lexing- 
ton reached Mecklenburg County later than the middle of May. 
For instance Edmund Fanning wrote a letter to Governor Tryon, 
dated Hillsborough, April 23, 1768. This letter was received at 
"Wilmington the night of April 26. Fanning said he expected to 
receive an answer by three o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday the 
first of May next. The express with the Lexington news was at 
Newberne on May 6th. (See North Carolina Records, VII. 713, 
715, 719; IX, 1236-1238). 



30 The Texas Review 

polite preamble?. Apparently they had had no Committee 
of Safety until then : they had been too careless, on whatever 
grounds, and now they organized a Committee of Safety and 
got down to the business of running their own affairs. What 
they did became at once so commonplace, as governmental 
routine came to be in the West, that nothing was easier from 
1819 on than to question their outright common sense, cor- 
nered as they were around the middle of May '75. Those 
Mecklenburg men were speaking out, not only to Governor 
Martin and his principals, but to the managers of the Whig 
party. At any rate, in the third Provincial Congress, at 
Hillsborough in August, there was a flat equality of repre- 
sentation among the counties. Mecklenburg had six dele- 
gates, all new men in these new Provincial affairs, and four 
of them had signed the Declaration in May. Governor Mar- 
tin had been immensely impressed. His line of communica- 
tions was more open towards the sea, and he retired to Fort 
Johnston, at the mouth of the Cape Fear, early in June. 
Sending a dispatch thence to the Earl of Dartmouth on the 
30th he said, 'the Resolves of the Committee of Meckenburg, 
which your Lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper, sur- 
pass all the horrid and treasonable publications that the in- 
flammatory spirits of this continent have yet produced.' In 
July the Governor thought it well to look further to his line 
of communications, and withdrew to H. M. Sloop Cruizer in 
River Cape Fear. There on the 18th he held a meeting of his 
Council, when Mr. President Hasell gave it as his opinion 
that 'His Excellency should take every law^ful measure in 
his power to suppress the unnatural rebellion now fomenting 
in Mecklenburg and other parts of the province to overturn 
the Constitution and his just prerogative.' 

Mecklenburg County, by getting down to the essential busi- 
ness of the time, had unquestionably made itself rather con- 
spicuous. But neither the country nor North Carolina was 
yet ready to go all lengths. July 6th the Congress at Phila- 
delphia addressed the Inhabitants of Great Britain in a very 



Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 31 

conciliatory manner. July 8tTi the Congress at Philadelphia 
petitioned the throne in a most conciliatory manner. Pat- 
rick Henry and his fellows signed their names to such pacific 
paragraphs as, "For such arrangements as your Majesty's 
wisdom can form, for collecting the united sense of your 
American people, we are convinced your Majesty would re- 
ceive such satisfactory proofs of the disposition of the colon- 
ists toward their sovereign and parent state that the wished 
for opportunity would soon be restored to them of evincing 
the sincerity of their professions by every testimony of de- 
votion becoming the most dutiful subjects and the most 
affectionate colonists." July 10th four ministers of Phila- 
delphia addressed the Presbyterians of North Carolina 
(Mecklenburg was for Presbytery) — "Believe no man that 
dares to say we desire to be independent of our mother 
country." Mr. Hooper and Mr. Hewes had affixed their 
names just below that of Mr. Jefferson to the Petition to 
the Throne of July 8th, yet on the same day Mr. Hewes wrote 
to Samuel Johnston (head of the North Carolina Whigs, but 
very much a conservative) "I consider myself now over head 
and ears in what the Ministry call Rebellion." Were not 
these mixed affairs? Who can know clearly what he is doing 
when he breaks with his old government? And so the Con- 
gress of Hillsborough, (August and September, 1775), that 
armed the province, was willing to endorse an address to 
the Inhabitants of the British Empire, Mr. Hooper's work, 
in which Mr. Hooper said, "We have been told that inde- 
pendence is our object: that we seek to shake off all connec- 
tion with the parent state. Cruel suggestion ! Do not all our 
professions, all our actions uniformly contradict this?" Mr. 
Hooper went even beyond the General Congress and said it 
was the desire of North Carolina to be restored to its con- 
dition of the early part of the year 1763. Those delegates 
from Mecklenburg who had signed the Meckenburg Declara- 
tion, (Messrs. Polk, Alexander, Avery, and Phifer), signed 
Mr. Hooper's address, just as Mr. Henry and Mr. Jefferson 



32 The Texas Review 

had sigmed John Dickinson's address. The Mecklenburg del- 
egates knew at least that they represented a vast county that 
was, and had advertised itself as being, a self-governing ter- 
ritory. And exactly when were drawn up the remarkable 
Instructions for the Delegates of Mecklenburg County (quite 
as remarkable as the Declaration) beginning "you are in- 
structed to vote that the late province of North Carolina is 
and of right ought to be a free and independent state invested 
with all the power of legislation capable of making laws to 
regulate all its internal policy subject only in its external 
connections and foreign commerce to a negative of a conti- 
nental Senate — you are instructed to vote for the erection 
of a civil government under the authority of the people for 
the future security of all the rights, privileges and preroga- 
tives of the state and the private natural and unalienable 
rights of the constituting members thereof either as men or 
Christians. If this should not be confirmed in Congress or 
Convention — protest. ' ' 

There were declarations being made within the province 
of North Carolina and up and down the coastal plain that 
amazed Governor Martin. Patiently keeping open his line of 
communications, on board the Cruizer sloop of war, he was 
afforded opportunity to reflect at large upon politics, wis- 
dom, war, and other things. In October he wrote to the Earl 
of Dartmouth, who was also nearing his end as an American 
official. 

"I have now and then, my Lord, the heart breaking pain to hear 
the murmurings and lamentations of a loyal subject who^ steals 
down here to unbosom his griefs, to complain of the want of sup- 
port from government, and to enquire when it may be expected. 
And while I labour to console and encourage him under his suf- 
fering's, I am doubly sensible of my own impotent and disg-aceful 
condition and circumstances, my feel'ngs of which and for the dig- 
nity of his Majesty's government it is impossible for me to express 
or describe." 



^l^ortlx Carolina Records, X. 239. 



Setting of the Mecklenburg DeclxVration 33 

The Governor (in partibus) gave his chief a very interest- 
ing and very discerning account of the doings in Congress, 
both at Philadelphia and at Hillsborough. He was amazed 
and puzzled at the political force and skill of these men— 
'Heaven knows what are the views of them at large! It 
is nevertheless far from me and my intentions to judge them. 
I for my part deplore most sincerely the unnatural subsisting 
contest, and most devoutly pray for a just, constitutional, 
honorable and speedy termination of it.' And then Josiah 
Martin wrote off the wisest words he ever used — 

'The restraints of trade that have been highly expedient, proper, 
and necessary, will doubtless by slow operation produce effect in 
time, if foreign states and foreign wars do not interpose, but they 
will never cure the instant and fatal growing distemper of rebellion 
or alter the principle of it, nor do they promise to be the means of 
conciliating the affections of this people. And whatever measures 
the wisdom of government shall employ for reducing the colony to 
present obedience, the more pleasing task of reconciling them to it 
lastingly, as I humbly and perhaps ignorantly conceive, will be ac- 
complished only by some great act of State, deciding all claims 
with precision and settling a permanent and just system of political 
relation and dependance between the parent state and her colonies, 
that will be an immense and glorious work but pregnant with 
difficulties, many of which it is probable my short sight, [nor as we 
know, the sight of William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth], does not 
comprehend.' 

What a commentary — is not that a commentary? — upon 
wisdom and politics! 



WHY DO WE LAUGH AT FALSTAFF? 

By Thomas Vernor Smith 



J- 



If yon will,, immediately after enjoying a heart/ laugh, 
serionsly proposal to yourself the question, now precisely why 
did I larph? yrn^ill find yonrself confronted 1^^ a question 
which in its subtlery, has interested all and baffled many of 
the world's greatest i^khilosophers. Laught§^ itself is, of 
course, ensy, indeed alnr^st gratuitous; bu^ its explnnation is 
from every viewpoint diff%ilt. I have a,^riend, for instance, 
who has spent several monl-'hs in an ^ort, not this time to 
explain the comic, but only %J;o eliififeify humor upon some 
logical basis. But even in thf^ fysj^^erficial task he tells me 
that he has utterly failed. Your%ill see, therefore, that the 
question of the comic both in jiterature and in liie is worthy 
of the best efforts of the j^enest rainds. For the purpose 
of the present inquiry it/%iakes no difference whether the 
question be put. Why \d Falstaff funny? or Why do we 
laugh at Falstaff? To/ask the question in either form is in 
reality to inquire wkat is the comic in human experience. 
You will see, then, , that I propose not so much to set forth 
an interpretation /f the character Falstaff as to enunciate a 
theory of the coisfiic, or rather to amplify and apply a theory 
of the comic ajti'eady enunciated by the French philosopher, 
Henri Bergso^. It happens that Falstaff' is the best personality 
in English ^^terature upon which to hang the object lesson; 
first, becavfse he is the funniest character in our literature, 
and, sec'6ndly, because he, through his association with 
Shakespeare's Prince Henry, is already used to being made 
a tool. 

I \ 

f 

In good earnest, then, I submit the question, — Why is 
Falstaff funny ? Falstaff is funny, 'first, because he is humanV, 



B113-1019-400-2741 

The Texas Review 

VOL. V. OCTOBER, 1919. No. 1 

Entered as second-class matter June 7, 1915, at the postoffice at 
Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 

EDITOR, Robert Adger Law. 
MANAGING EDITOR, E. M. Clark. 

ADVISORY EDITORS: 

Lilia M. Casis, Howard Mnmford Jones, 

Edwin W. Fay, Thad W. Riker, 

G. Watts Cunningham, James Finch Roystor. 




CONTENTS OF THE OCTOBER NUMBER 

October's Child Mrs. W. 8. Hendrix 1 

The Seeker Robert Calvin WMtford 2 

King Arthur's Return WiUia7n Dyer Moore 5 

Mr. Alfred Noyes and the Literary Rebels 

James Finch Royster 10 

etting of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence 
A. J. Morrison 15 

Why Do We Laugh at Falstaff ? . . Thomas Vernor Smith 34 

Humanism and the Modern Spirit. Perct/ Hazen Houston 49 

An Irish Mme. de Stael Benjamin M. Woodhridge 70 

The Pump Room — 

On Razor Straps Charles R. Lingley 84 



CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER 

Mrs, W. S. Hendrix, of Austin, Texas, has written many 
verses for the Review. 

Robert Calvin Whitford is assistant professor of English 
in Knox Collegre, Illinois. 

WiLiiiAM Dyer Moore is teaching in the Brackenridge High 
School of San Antonio, 

James Pinch Royster is professor of English in the Uni- 
versity of Texas. 

A, J. Morrison of Hampden-Sidney, Virginia, wrote "Four 
Revolntions and Virginia Education" for the Beview in 
January, 1919, 

Thomas Vernor Smith, recently of the faculty of Texas 
Christian University, is now Oldright fellow in philosophy 
in the University of Texas. 

Percy Hazen Houston, first managing editor of the Texas 
Review, now of the English department of the United 
States Naval Academy, Annapolis, wrote "Winds of 
Doctrine" in the April Review. 

Benjamin Mather Woodbridge, associate professor of French 
in Rice Institute, Texas, contributed "Benjamin Con- 
stant's Adolpha" to the Review of October, 1916, 

Charles R. Lingley, assistant professor of history in Dart- 
mouth College, New Hampshire, wrote "Public Opinion 
and the Third Term Tradition" for the Review of 
April, 1916. 



o?v 



/ 



OCTOBER, 1919 



THE 



TEXAS 
REVIEW 




PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE 
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 



$2.00 a Year 50 cent» a Copy 

Vol. V, No. 1 



